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Urban Science
Special Issues
Urban Thermal Environment under Global Warming Pressure
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Urban Thermal Environment under Global Warming Pressure

A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2016) | Viewed by 33566

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Panagiotis Nastos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Climatology and Atmospheric Environment, Department of Geology and Geoenvironment, School of Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, GR 15784 Athens, Greece
Interests: climate variability and climate change; human biometeorology; climate and weather extremes; hydrometeorological phenomena; atmospheric circulation patterns; environmental impacts on health
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urban agglomerations combine into one body, the cause and the impact, simultaneously. The cause, on one hand, is that the urban environment is itself responsible for the modification of the microclimate via heat release (urban heat island) and air polluting emissions due to anthropogenic activities. On the other hand, the greenhouse effect is forcing a warmer climate, and it exacerbates the already adverse environmental conditions in a city. The impact triggered by the aforementioned causes concerns the quality of life and public health. Thus, it is clear that urban areas influence/control the final state of the thermal environment by means of intensifying extreme weather, such as strong heat stress, convective precipitation, and poor air quality. Given that the thermal urban environment cannot be assessed and quantified by utilizing only one meteorological parameter, such as air temperature, the implementation of complex thermal indices, based on the human energy balance model, should be considered to reach reliable results. Towards this objective, this Special Issue aims at compiling state-of-the-art work from researchers who focus, but not exclusively so, on the assessment of present and future biometeorological simulations of thermal urban environments and, especially, open areas in a city. In particular, this Special Issue welcomes theoretical and experimental research articles on the following themes, although progress reports on relevant research issues are also acceptable:

  • Thermal comfort on the built environment and urban landscapes
  • Experimental techniques and biometeorological measurements in an urban area
  • Remote sensing methodologies (drones, LiDARs and satellites) on urban climatology
  • Urban design and planning towards sustainable cities
  • Urban heat island and mitigation strategies
  • Global warming and resilience plans for cities
  • Modeling of thermal urban environment
  • Early warning systems of heat and cold waves designed for urban environments
  • Green cities
  • Public health and extreme weather (heat and cold waves) in a city
  • Air quality and thermal comfort in a city

Prof. Dr. Panagiotis Nastos
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Urban Science is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban heat island
  • heat stress
  • human biometeorology
  • global warming forcing
  • convective weather
  • adaptation and resilience
  • early warning systems
  • green policies

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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2600 KiB  
Article
The Urban Heat Island Effect in the City of Valencia: A Case Study for Hot Summer Days
by Annamária Lehoczky, José A. Sobrino, Dražen Skoković and Enric Aguilar
Urban Sci. 2017, 1(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci1010009 - 16 Feb 2017
Cited by 33 | Viewed by 18775
Abstract
Extreme heat poses significant risks to the world’s growing urban population, and the heat stress to human health is likely to escalate with the anthropogenically increased temperatures projected by climate models. Thus, the additional heat from the urban heat island (UHI) effect needs [...] Read more.
Extreme heat poses significant risks to the world’s growing urban population, and the heat stress to human health is likely to escalate with the anthropogenically increased temperatures projected by climate models. Thus, the additional heat from the urban heat island (UHI) effect needs to be quantified, including the spatial pattern. This study focuses on the city of Valencia (Spain), investigating the intensity and spatial pattern of UHI during three consecutive hot summer days accompanying a heat record. For the analysis, long-term in situ measurements and remote sensing data were combined. The UHI effect was evaluated using two approaches: (a) based on air temperature (AT) time-series from two meteorological stations and (b) using land surface temperature (LST) images from MODIS products by NASA with 1 km resolution. The strongest nighttime UHI estimated from AT was 2.3 °C, while the most intense surface UHI calculated as the difference between the LST of urban and rural regions (defined by NDVI) was 2.6 °C—both measured during the night after the record hot day. To assess the human thermal comfort in the city the Discomfort Index was applied. With the increasing number of tropical nights, the mitigation of nighttime UHI is a pressing issue that should be taken into consideration in climate-resilient urban planning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Thermal Environment under Global Warming Pressure)
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4812 KiB  
Article
Estimation of Particulate Matter Impact on Human Health within the Urban Environment of Athens City, Greece
by Konstantinos P. Moustris, Kleopatra Ntourou and Panagiotis T. Nastos
Urban Sci. 2017, 1(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci1010006 - 20 Jan 2017
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4680
Abstract
The main objective of this work is the assessment of the annual number of hospital admissions for respiratory diseases (HARD) due to the exposure to inhalable particulate matter (PM10), within the greater Athens area (GAA), Greece. To achieve this aim, on [...] Read more.
The main objective of this work is the assessment of the annual number of hospital admissions for respiratory diseases (HARD) due to the exposure to inhalable particulate matter (PM10), within the greater Athens area (GAA), Greece. To achieve this aim, on the one hand, time series of the particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm (PM10) recorded in six monitoring stations located in the GAA, for a 13-year period 2001–2013, have been statistically analyzed. On the other hand, the AirQ2.2.3 software developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) was used to evaluate adverse health effects by PM10 in the GAA during the examined period. The results show that, during the examined period, PM10 concentrations present a significant decreasing trend. Also, the mean annual HARD cases per 100,000 inhabitants ranged between 20 (suburban area) and 40 (city center area). Approximately 70% of the annual HARD cases are due to city center residents. In all examined sites, a declining trend in the annual number of HARD cases appears. Moreover, a strong relation between the annual number of HARD cases and the annual number of days exceeding the European Union daily PM10 threshold value was found. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Thermal Environment under Global Warming Pressure)
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1233 KiB  
Article
Urban Heat Island Intensification during Hot Spells—The Case of Paris during the Summer of 2003
by Koen De Ridder, Bino Maiheu, Dirk Lauwaet, Ioannis A. Daglis, Iphigenia Keramitsoglou, Kostas Kourtidis, Paolo Manunta and Marc Paganini
Urban Sci. 2017, 1(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci1010003 - 24 Nov 2016
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 9175
Abstract
Heat waves are projected to become more frequent, longer-lasting, and intense. At the same time, urban areas are confronted with the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon, which adds to the thermal stress experienced during hot spells. Focusing on the Paris area during the [...] Read more.
Heat waves are projected to become more frequent, longer-lasting, and intense. At the same time, urban areas are confronted with the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon, which adds to the thermal stress experienced during hot spells. Focusing on the Paris area during the hot summer of 2003, we investigated the influence of heat waves on UHI intensity, i.e., the urban-rural temperature contrast. In a first step, this was done based on observed temperatures from an urban and a rural site, showing that per C increase in the daytime temperature, the nighttime UHI intensity increased by 0.086 C. Recognizing the limited spatial representativeness of the urban experimental site, located in a park, we then performed simulations with an urban climate model, covering the wider Paris area for the summer of 2003. First, a validation was done using the aforementioned temperature measurements to do so. Subsequently, we estimated the sensitivity of the nighttime UHI intensity with respect to the daytime temperature, this time using simulated temperatures of the densely built-up areas in the center of Paris, yielding an increase of UHI intensity of 0.19 C per C increase in the daytime temperature. While these results only apply to the domain and period studied, they do confirm recent reports that the UHI intensity increases during heat waves. The results also show that for the cooler parts of the urban fabric (e.g., parks), the UHI intensification during heat waves is around half of that of the dense urban fabric, thus providing some insights into possible mitigation strategies for the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Thermal Environment under Global Warming Pressure)
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